It's been a hot minute since I just deleted everything on this gallery and left my fav's for posterity, but y'know what?? I kinda feel like having an art gallery again. I was sick and stupid busy for a long time and art kind of... died for me, but I'm back!! I feel like having a gallery would be really encouraging/motivating. I realize my followers are from like.... 100 years ago, but if you're still around, say hi?

I already wrote one journal entry so sorry if you get them like twice?? Idk where it went. It's in my stash writer as a... thing?? but I can't do anything to it. So here's attempt two.

UH. So here I am. I didn't really forget DA, I just haven't felt like doing anything. I was sick for a really long time, and I guess I'm still not actually better but I like to pretend that I am. I moved to Japan, but not much else has changed about me. I'm trying to get back into drawing and kind of failing at it, but there's still a ton of shit from when I last posted over a year ago. So I'll upload some stuff now!

I really needed to get that old journal off of my page, haha. Okay, well I have a couple of things to post about now so I feel justified in writing an entry.

First off, I'm looking for new members for my RP! Our community is pretty small, and we're having trouble staying active when one or more people are busy. I'm lazy, so I'll copy-pasta my post from tumblr, lol. It is a sci-fi post-apocalyptic deal set in Japan. We're still around the beginning working into the first part of the main plot now, so it's a good time to join. You don't need to know anything beforehand, though you will of course need to have/acquire some basic knowledge about the old culture and new environment. Weeaboo nonsense is not allowed, so fear not, it is a safe Japanese environment. XD

Everyone who enjoys writing and role-playing is invited. Moderate writing skills are ideal, but don't be shy if you're not sure. I personally help all new members and all characters are subject to approval (so we have a level playing field and no sues/stus). It's pretty lax, with no post length requirements and a lot of freedom. We're all very friendly, and the game is a ton of fun.

So if you are even remotely interested, please comment here with some contact info or shoot me a note, and I will tell you a bit more about it!

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So the other thing is that Lulai33 and I are working on setting things up for that RO comic I've been posting stuff for. I think we should have things up and running in the next week or two, so here's a head's up! I'll of course post a notice about it, but I guess I just wanted to say it's actually happening. I wonder how many of my watchers like/play RO?

I won't bother including the news, as I'm sure you all know by now about the devastation and crisis that has occurred and continues in Japan. As a person who has studied Japan in college and for personal enjoyment, a lover of its language, people, culture, and history, and also as someone who has a friend there in the Sendai area (who we have not yet heard from), I am pretty upset by these events! I will of course personally be donating to disaster relief regardless.

However, like some other artists, I would like to offer some incentives for others to donate. I'll be offering $10 sketch commissions, digital or or traditional. You may have more than one, and you are welcome to donate more to have me send it in all together. I will also do simple inks and colors for $20. All proceeds will go to helping disaster relief in Japan. If you want a copy/print or the original (in the case of traditional works), I'd just ask that you pay whatever the extra cost/postage might be. If you would like more than a sketch, feel free to ask and I'll give you the appropriate price amount. I will still donate proceeds to relief efforts.

Quality of sketches will be same as what you usually see in my sketch dumps and stuff. I will be doing single-character waist-ups for the most part, and the only things I don't draw are mecha. I can try my hand at animals but results are not guaranteed. Digital sketches can be pretty huge and in whatever color you like, traditional will be on a piece of bristol. Payment will be paypal only at the moment.

$10 sketch$20 simple inks and colors (above is flats, but I will shade it unless you want flats)

Send me a note with your request if you're interested. Currently there's no cap.

Edit:My friend has been found! There is an article about it here. She is safe and ok.

Extra edit: The above information was unconfirmed, but reported to her parents by the embassy anyway. She is in fact still missing, and clues on her people finder page indicate she could be anywhere. Follow-up article: www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/0…

-----If you would just like to donate to help out, you can donate yourself or text REDCROSS to 90999 and automatically donate $10. I URGE YOU to please donate directly to aid organizations. I have heard from my change.org newsletters that AT&T and Verizon are holding onto these text donations until the end of your next billing cycles, so Japan will NOT receive your aid donations until then!

This journal entry is particularly helpful, should you be looking for who to donate to (other than Red Cross) or if you'd like to see who else is offering these commissions.

Hey everybody, yuyunurse is doing some $3 sketch commissions!! I bought like 6 of them. I am telling you all about it because $3 is way too cheap for her awesome art and you should all go buy a bunch too. I MEAN IT. GO.

Well, in the spirit of beta-testing, I will write a journal entry. It is pretty cool, gotta say. Lookin' good. All right, so here's some updates on my life..!!

I am no longer going to be drawing Demon Wing. I love drawing silly comics, but I honestly just hate drawing regular comics! hahaha, oh well. I gave it a half-assed shot, and I should have stopped a long time ago. Thanks to everyone who stuck around for that long. Like I said on the site (there is a better explanation there, I suppose, if you want to go read it), if anyone for some reason is dying to know what happens, just let me know and I'd be glad to tell you. I owe you for sticking around this long! DW as a story still exists, and I still love it, so don't think I will stop drawing the characters or anything~

Buuut I have been beginning work on a novel, which I am writing for purposes of submitting for publication. I feel a little silly saying that on the internet (especially DA), where just about everyone is writing a book, but I am 100% serious. I am going with my strengths and making a career move while I scope out other options, as the world isn't really working out for me right now. As a result, this is pretty much all I'm working on and thinking about, so I am drawing a lot less (sad). But when I doooo, prepare yourselves for an awful lot of stuff from new book, lol. Although actually what I've been drawing has been about 50/50 new things and old things, lol. And nothing good! HOORAY! I may post some info about the book/story/characters if people are interested, but probably not any of the actual writing, hahaha.

I guess that's all I have to say. I've been using my tumblr a lot, and I upload everything there so if you want to see: zaaly.tumblr.com/

SO yeah. I watched the lunar eclipse on the solstice through dense cloud cover, and then spent the rest of Yule sick. Hahaha. But I am feeling a bit better now, and have just finished celebrating Christmas with my family. I am clearly not religiously discriminate. XD I hope everyone is having a nice holiday!

So anyway, as many of you must know already from your inboxes, I participated in a Secret Santa thing. Here is the picture I got of Toshiaki from the lovely lushan :

I got one and I want to know if you have one too so I can follow you. This is not only going to be my sketch blog, but my anything and everything that isn't my private life blog. I already really like tumblr format, so I imagine I will be keeping this blog for a long time. On that note however, I will not be keeping my blogger... blog. Blog is a really stupid word.

Ok, so really only one person responded to my feature offer in my last post so maybe if I put "meme" in the title people will read it!

I was featured by the uber-amazing Marzipanapple and so I am going to put this meme in my own journal! Leave a comment and I will feature you, then you do the same!

Lol, so only 5 people... and pretty much all of them are my friends, but oh well. XD I fail at writing things about people.

1. I swear there has never been a work of art by her that I didn't adore. She has such a wide range of talents, and an even more vast pool of amazing ideas. Her t-shirt designs are so good, I want to own them all!

2. Tracker is one of the best animal artists I know. She can do realism and cartoon, and she's getting so good at anime! WHAT WILL WE DO WITH HER WHEN HER TALENT CAN NO LONGER BE CONTAINED?

3. First of all, I miss you (and Alison) and I need to get my ass to a con just to see you guys. XD Second of all, AWESOME. My ancient con buddies and art friends and also awesome game makers who never cease to amaze me <33

4. LoL, STUPID Katree. ILU. She draws a lot of awesome things and doesn't give herself enough credit. She also does some awesome MLP customs, but I don't think she wants me to post those here, lol. XD (lol)

5. The only person I don't know in person! Her art has such a sweet air, and I am jealous of her traditional art skills. Go look at her gallery!

Well after 7 years I finally got to 20k. Thank you to anyone who ever stopped by! And for any and all of my watchers, I'm going to be doing a features journal. If you'd like your work to be included, just send me a note and I'll choose my favorites from your gallery.

Ok, V7 guys, I know you're tired of hearing about it now, but I'd like your thoughts. I'm torn between really enjoying it, and feeling annoyed. Since I know my opinion will never matter in the grand scheme of things, despite the fact that I've been a paying member for years, I've decided to keep it confined to a more personal space and just annoy you all with it.

Things I like:Overall I think it has a nice, streamlined look. The dropdown menus are good, I am a fan of dropdown. The new browsing functions are kind of nice (by that I mean the forward and back buttons in the bottom corners. If you don't care about how the art is presented to you, then this should probably be a good change for you).

Things that are too minor to care about:I miss the search bar and my customized tool bar :C but those are negligible. Needs title on the top. The speech bubbles? lol. The bottom browsing bar is okay when it works, but I can only get it to come up maybe 25% of the time. Am I doin' it wrong? Dunno. Mostly I ignore its existence. The message center access and sorting is dumbed down from what it was and there are now more steps for the sorted way I like. Grouping devs and journals is stupid. Meh.

Things that are getting on my nerves and about which I will go into detail:This layout is clearly made for ipad (and iphone). Who cares if they get a similar experience on a mobile device as we do on the web? I use DA mobile on my phone and it's fine. The buttons don't need to be big enough for peoples' fat fingers to touch easier. The internet is highspeed for a reason, so why design the web for a phone or a touch device? I'm having trouble seeing the "artwork is the star" or time-saving aspect of v7. I have to click more buttons to get where I usually go just for the sake of a more simplistic look. er...? Ok, and seriously the one thing that is driving me nuts : I can't seem to wrap my mind around why they would completely eliminate the individual user option to view deviations zoomed-in FIRST. As someone who views maybe around 500 deviations a day, viewing them zoomed out is tiresome (though zoom is pretty much instantaneous) and insulting to the artist. It encourages people to glance over the work as a tiny thumb - they might as well not even open it. Some small views are almost smaller than the artist comment box! Apparently they want the entire piece to be 100% visible upon loading the page... but as someone who draws omgHUEG this is seriously do not want and it doesn't help anyone by decreasing the quality. The only solution to this (from a browsing standpoint) is to open one image, zoom in, and use the next button. I am not feeling too keen on looking at all the pictures of vaginas pretending to be "art" or the terrible animu fanart bumped up on sheer character popularity or teh gay. I know I can't be the only one who goes through, opens the ones I like in a million tabs, and then goes through those. But I tried that yesterday on the new layout and OI, is it annoying.

Ok, well after all that it just sounds like I hate it, but I really don't. If they gave me back my option I would probably be fine. It's not like I want DA to tailor to my tastes, just reinstate an option they've had for quite some time. I believe tab-happy browsers everywhere would be glad of it.

I just have to say that the fandom for Hanna is not a Boy's Name is really starting to scare me. Like, a lot. Maybe more than the big anime fandoms (well, it's getting there). I'll never understand yaoi fangirls... I really just don't get it.